To say that Santiago Lorenzo’s talent is one-in-a-million is quite the understatement.
Try one in 11 million.
The decathlete standout on the Oregon men’s track and field team came to college from the densely populated city of Buenos Aires, Argentina in 1998 and is one of the Ducks’ three NCAA qualifiers this season.
His resume included a second-place finish at the 1997 Junior Pan-American Games, the 1998 South American Championship title, his country’s national decathlon record and, on top of that, plenty of room for improvement.
While the rest of the Ducks compete in the Oregon Twilight this Saturday starting at 5:30 p.m., Lorenzo — along with teammates Billy Pappas and Doug Sells — will work his 10-event magic in the two-day Pacific-10 Conference Championships for combination events. Pac-10 action begins at noon Saturday, and Sunday’s events start at 12:15 p.m.
Both meets take place at Hayward Field.
“Track is about the individual, but there are specific meets where everything is based on the team,” Lorenzo said. “I would like to get a Pac-10 title and score some points for the team. It would also help me to score high. Thinking of the team always makes you go hard and score as many points as you can.”
Lorenzo has a number to match his goal. “I’m shooting for 77 in every single meet,” he said. Seventy-seven, or 7,700 points, is the qualifying standard Lorenzo must meet to represent his country in the 2000 Olympic Games.
And for someone who has done so much at age 22, an Olympic berth now or later seems inevitable as the next chapter of Lorenzo’s athletic story, which began at age 3 when he taught himself how to ride a bike.
“There were no helping wheels,” Lorenzo said. “I just got on top of the bike and started riding until I finally didn’t fall.”
“My family is sports,” Lorenzo said. His father, Gerardo, was a two-time Pan-Am Games Champion and competed in the 1972 and 1978 Olympics. His 6-foot tall mother, Mariana, was a talented volleyball player. His grandma ran the 80-meter dash holding the South American record in the 1950s.
So given his genetic background, is it really that surprising Lorenzo also taught himself how to swim? His self-teaching methods were simple — drop a stone into the deep end of the swimming pool, and go get it.
“That’s what makes us tough,” Lorenzo said. “Decathlons are very tough because you have to do ten events. Even if 10 people are better than you, you have to say, ‘Hey, watch out for me, I’m going to go hard.’”
His sink-or-swim mentality carried him through high school. Lorenzo immersed himself in sports, including tennis, rugby, field hockey, golf, soccer and cross country.

He joined his local track club in 1994 and competed in the pole vault in javelin. He once filled an open spot on a relay team, introducing him to sprinting events.
Two years later, Lorenzo tried out his first-ever decathlon and broke the South American record for 15 through 18 year olds. The record hadn’t been touched since 1975.
Everything else has fallen into place.
Lorenzo left behind the sunny weather of his home in Buenos Aires, Argentina to come to the less warm, more-often-than-not rainy Eugene. Last season, he finished ranked No. 33 among collegians after finishing second in the Pac-10 with a score of 7,150.
Since then, Lorenzo has obliterated his mark from last season. He scored 7,580 points in April at the Texas Relays in Austin, beating his personal best by more than 200 points.
“Santiago is still young in the event of decathloning,” decathlon coach Bill Lawson said. “I’m not sure how many decathlons he’s done in South America, however, I do know that his developmental curve is continuing to grow. We fully expect Santiago to go to another level. He made a big jump this year, but our expectations will be for him to jump to another level next year.”
He may not be King of the Hill anymore, but he is better than ever.
“It’s nice to have people better than, or equal to you, to push yourself to get better and better,” Lorenzo said. “Here I have more motivation than I had in Argentina, and motivation is key.”
The other Ducks should have plenty to do in the Oregon Twilight, including senior Steve Fein.
The Ducks officially announced Thursday that Fein, who has missed most of the outdoor season due to sinus and training problems, will be the 13th runner in the Oregon Twilight mile.
Fein is the only entrant in the field who hasn’t cracked a four-minute mile. His personal best is 4 minutes, 1.65 seconds last season.
Other Oregon athletes are close to earning Pac-10 berths.
In the sprints, Jermaine Hanspard is .06 seconds slow of the 100 meters and Howard Moore is .13 seconds off of the 200 meters.
In the middle-distance 1,500, Todd Humcke and Adam Bergquist are .06 and .17 seconds from qualifying, respectively.